Imperial Guard Helmet Skupilkinson's Pepakura

I'd hate to say it, but what if you built another one about 10% larger? That might help if what you have now might have a little snug of a fit. The bucket is looking awesome though!
 
I was thinking the same thing. I hate it when I'be built something like this only for it not to fit just right. Though sometimes the easier fix is to start over but slghtly bigger. It could mean less of a headache for you?

Though to contibue and work with what you've already done is commendable! Either way I think you're doing a great job!
 
I'd also agree...
Starting fresh would mean allot less heartache down the road if the lid does not fit? I'm going thro the same issues with a different lid...
Or you could complete it and offer them out as child size RG lids for halloween or something? ;)
 
I think if I end up redoing it I'll try and get hold of some A4 card paper. But... being the stubborn, bull headed guy I am, I'm gonna keep fighting until there is no other option. I did something last night after the last post that seemed to help out a lot. We'll see where that goes.
 
Well I finally got it all put back together. I think it turned out well. Any thing that needs fixed now should be able to be done easily with bondo. Here are the mod pics.

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After I cut it in half I glued some tabs in key places to reattach the halves.

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After the initial reattachment. You can see the alignment issue in the profile shot.

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After fighting with the issue for a while, I decided that the bottom of the "face" portion was not letting it give enough to do what I needed to do. So I cut it away from the bottom and moved it back to its original position. BINGO! The the sides are pretty well lined up.

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You can see in the pics before how the face kind of recedes back into the helmet. To fix this I placed some small tabs at the upper portion of the gap in the face area and lifted everything out, pulled the sides in a little ,and glued it into place leaving only the gap at the bottom. Yes, I was watching Animaniacs.

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The bottom after filling the gap.

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After filling any open gaps.

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At last, me wearing the final piece. My wife thought my eyes looked creepy peeking out. I may have to do a little modification on the eye area to widen it out a bit. But that's no biggie.

It was a little frustrating at times during this mod but I can say I'm glad I went to all the trouble instead of starting over. Now I can say I did it. Now the next step... getting it under glass and bondo. Updates to follow when that starts. Thanks to everyone for the coments and advice and especially Skip for doing this in the first place.
 
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You're more than welcome buddy. I'm only sorry that the size I chose to release this in didn't work out for you in the first place.

Upon saying that, it's been great to watch your progress so far. Top marks for sticking with it and seeing the mod through. As you know I was skeptical at first, knowing the kind of problems you'd hit along the way. It's always good to be proven wrong every now and then though. You did just that. ;)

Looking forward now to seeing the rest of your progress. ;)
 
I don't think the sizing you chose was the issue. I think what it all boils down to is the translation from A4 to letter. I played around with this in the pepakura designer program the other day, just to see, and I don't think that could be made to fit on letter sized paper. I undid the unfolding, reset the values for letter, re-unfolded, and it still wouldn't fit. I guess it could but it is beyond my skills. I would say that any problems are definately not with the design. The overall helmet is just too big for some things to be broken down fit on letter. It is crazy to see this thing sitting on the table. It just looks enormous even before my mods. I've never seen one, not being worn, in person. I guess I just did not realize how much helmet was actually there.
 
You're right there. Mine currently sits in my garage awaiting more fibreglass and filler. It does indeed look massive. Almost too big even!
 
Well widening the visor area became more of a task than it should have been. I remembered that all of the ones I had seen had a little rim that came down from the top of the visor area. I wanted to incorporate that into the mod and ended up with this.
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Something just didn't look quite right about it, so I pulled up some reference pics I had saved and I was way off. The lens shouold be almost flush with the rest of the face so I started hacking. (Kind of puts me in mind of one of the Lizardmen from Flash Gordon.)
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I started reattachment by reforming the top of the visor area to match the bottom and attached it to the "forehead" section. Then I began putting it back together.
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Then I split the remaining upper portion of the forehead into tabs, and glued the upper and lower portions back together. I had to make some small pieces to fill in gaps at the back. Resulting in this.
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I also noticed that the flare out on the back of mine seemed a little too big so I had to fix that too. That was easy though compared to the face. I just split the middle of the back ans overlapped the two sides until I thought it pulled in enough and reglued it.
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I think I may be able to get this under some resin now. I figure I can cure any imperfections with the FG and Bondo.(y)
 
Thanks. I finally got some time to throw some resin on it today. It's impressive just how much sturdier this is now.
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I figured I'd save myself a little extra shaping with bondo so I cut out another small section and smoothed it out a bit.
Here it is after a couple coats of resin. Next chance I get I'll start hitting it with FG cloth.
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Oh yeah... For anyone doing a project like this (this is mostly for any males reading this) Don't forget to wear a shirt.
CHEST HAIR AND FIBERGLASS RESIN DO NOT PLAY WELL TOGETHER!;):facepalm:eek::cry
 
Looks great my friend. Your time spent modding it and correcting the fit has been well spent! Makes me want to get into the garage and work on mine!
 
I started getting some FG cloth put in place this weekend. I did it on the front porch so I didn't get it in the carpet. Anyway... While working on it my postal carrier came and was like "What are you making?" So I told him first I'm a Star Wars geek and then showed him exactly what it was. Now he wants me to catch him so he can see it when its done. He was really impressed by the paper model design. So more cheers to you Skip.
 
Hey thanks buddy. :) I keep getting weird looks when people walk by my garage too. LOL! They like,"What the hell is he doing in there?!" It's really funny to see their faces.

Looking forward (as always) to seeing more buddy.
 
Been really busy lately but, I finally got some FG cloth laid on and some preliminary shaping done. I've got almost 12 sq feet of cloth on it so far, and thats only one layer. It is quite rigid though so I think I'll leave it as such and start hitting it with some FG Resin Jelly. Hopefully I can show some more progress soon.
 
I got a little more done on this beast over the past couple weeks and mostly the last few days. Man this thing is ugly right now! I guess Halloween coming up has got me into the costuming spirit. The first four pics here are after the FG mat and some preliminary shaping with the dremel. In the last four I have begun the addition of Resin Jelly. I've heard some folks call it bondoglass. I've had to lay it on fairly thick in some areas due to uneven spots from the mods. The red arrow in the right profile pics shows one of the issues. I'm starting to get a bit giddy because this is the part I like. Believe it or not I love working with bondo. Its almost like sculpting to me.

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The red arrow in this one just shows where it appears to be wider, although it's not. I guess its just the angle and the lighting.
 
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